Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) has declared a state of emergency and is sending 250 National Guard troops to support local law enforcement at the border with Mexico.
The move makes Arizona the first state to declare an emergency as the Biden administration seeks to control the influx of migrants at the border.
In recorded remarks, Ducey blasted President Biden’s handling of the surge, saying the administration was “totally divorced from reality.”
“I said last month that the Biden administration is totally divorced from reality,” Ducey said. “Now, at times it seems like they fully understand the reality and they’re putting their heads in the sand and trying to ignore it anyway.”
Ducey’s office said in a statement that the troops will go to border communities to help with medical operations in detention centers, install and maintain border cameras, monitor and collect data from public safety cameras and analyze satellite imagery for smuggling.
An initial $25 million will be directed toward the deployment, though it’s unclear how long it would last.
Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that Border Patrol encountered 172,331 migrants in March alone, of which 48,587 were unaccompanied migrant children.
Arizona isn’t the first state to send the National Guard to the border. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) sent troops to the border in early March, though he didn’t declare a state of emergency.
Meanwhile, former President Trump deployed the National Guard to the border in 2018 before declaring an emergency to build the border wall.
Biden ended that emergency order but has kept the Guard presence at the border. The Pentagon said last month that the troop deployment could be extended past an expected fall end date.